(a) General rule. Except as provided in paragraph (g) of this section, Medicare-certified hospices must submit to CMS data on measures selected under section 1814(i)(5)(C) of the Act in a form and manner, and at a time, specified by the Secretary.

(b) Submission of Hospice Quality Reporting Program data. Hospices are required to complete and submit an admission Hospice Item Set (HIS) and a discharge HIS for each patient admission to hospice, regardless of payer or patient age. The HIS is a standardized set of items intended to capture patient-level data.

(c) A hospice that receives notice of its CMS certification number before November 1 of the calendar year before the fiscal year for which a payment determination will be made must submit data for the calendar year.

(d) Medicare-certified hospices must contract with CMS-approved vendors to collect the CAHPS® Hospice Survey data on their behalf and submit the data to the Hospice CAHPS® Data Center.

(e) If the hospice's total, annual, unique, survey-eligible, deceased patient count for the prior calendar year is less than 50 patients, the hospice is eligible to be exempt from the CAHPS® Hospice Survey reporting requirements in the current calendar year. In order to qualify for this exemption the hospice must submit to CMS its total, annual, unique, survey-eligible, deceased patient count for the prior calendar year.

(f) Vendors that want to become CMS-approved CAHPS® Hospice Survey vendors must meet the minimum business requirements. Survey vendors must have been in business for a minimum of 4 years, have conducted surveys in the approved survey mode for a minimum of 3 years, and have conducted surveys of individual patients for a minimum of 2 years. For Hospice CAHPS®, a “survey of individual patients” is defined as the collection of data from at least 600 individual patients selected by statistical sampling methods, and the data collected are used for statistical purposes. Vendors may not use home-based or virtual interviewers to conduct the CAHPS® Hospice Survey, nor may they conduct any survey administration processes (for example, mailings) from a residence.

(g) No organization, firm, or business that owns, operates, or provides staffing for a hospice is permitted to administer its own Hospice CAHPS® survey or administer the survey on behalf of any other hospice in the capacity as a Hospice CAHPS® survey vendor. Such organizations will not be approved by CMS as CAHPS® Hospice Survey vendors.

(h) Reconsiderations and appeals of Hospice Quality Reporting Program decisions.

(1) A hospice may request reconsideration of a decision by CMS that the hospice has not met the requirements of the Hospice Quality Reporting Program for a particular reporting period. A hospice must submit a reconsideration request to CMS no later than 30 days from the date identified on the annual payment update notification provided to the hospice.

(2) Reconsideration request submission requirements are available on the CMS Hospice Quality Reporting Web site on CMS.gov.

(3) A hospice that is dissatisfied with a decision made by CMS on its reconsideration request may file an appeal with the Provider Reimbursement Review Board under part 405, subpart R of this chapter.

[79 FR 50510, Aug. 22, 2014]